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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621716">Ainsley</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inslupbanana/pseuds/inslupbanana'>inslupbanana</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son one-shots/drabbles [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aromantic Malcolm Bright, Asexual Character, Asexual Malcolm Bright, Asexuality Spectrum, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:02:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,548</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621716</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inslupbanana/pseuds/inslupbanana</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Malcolm and Ainsley Whitly and the difficulties of growing up under societal expectations.</p><p>(Part one of my Identity series)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Malcolm Bright &amp; Ainsley Whitly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son one-shots/drabbles [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034385</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ainsley</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is mostly for me because I wanted to and if you couldn't tell I never normally finish my fics so I figured something short would be okay. Enjoy :)<br/>Also possible warning for like Malcolm being Malcolm?? and badly written ideas of depression?? idk<br/>(so sorry if anyone is here from my other fics, at the end of the day I am severely lacking in motivation. I sincerely apologise.)<br/>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The day Malcolm Bright started to realise that there was yet another part of him that would alienate him from the norm of society his name was Malcolm Whitly and he was two years past the night his father had been arrested for the murder of twenty-three women. Though, as his therapist would gently remind him, just because he was physically at a time past the events didn't mean he could pretend he was ever truly over the emotional trauma they'd caused.</p><p>He remembered it in the sticky heat of a New York summer, he'd just come from one of those therapy sessions and had been fidgeting and picking over his roast beef with his mother at the head of the table and his sister opposite him, the six-year-old already far more well-mannered than him at formal dinners. </p><p>There had been an oppressive quiet about the main room that day, his mother still in the period before she 'regulated' her drug-usage and none of them quite settled into their new normal. Despite this, the meal had started off as one of their better ones, a good Sunday roast that Elise (Malcolm's favorite member of the household) had prepared, with more than enough potatoes and vegetables to busy himself with the careful decimation of (God forbid he actually eat for once), to avoid the inevitable, painful conversation.</p><p>Unfortunately, this tactic obviously needed more work as his Mother had immediately tried to ask him probing questions about the 'benefit' of his therapy upon spotting said pile of diced up food. The room had seemed to shiver with him then at the disappointment in his mother's voice and they'd devolved to a silent staring contest, tuning out little Ainsley's happy chatter and letting her voice fade into the gloom their family couldn't escape from.</p><p>The underwhelming meal wasn't the important part though, the confrontation with his mother neither as both were events that would soon become typical of the Whitly's daily life. No, what was important about that day was a little girl old enough to recognise their tensions but too young to understand the meaning, a girl that, minutes later, had paused in her one-sided exchange and eyed him with the piercing stare of the only thing in Malcolm's life that was arguably more dangerous than having a serial killer for a father, a New York Socialite.</p><p>"What about today?" </p><p>Just like every other time she'd asked, she meant if he'd play with her today, it had been ages since Malcolm had played with her it seemed, only hazy memories of laughter and the tugging of warm hands remained, lost days once marked by the rumpling of fine clothes and grubby knees. </p><p>And for the last two years, her only reply had been a dull no on her brother's part, usually coupled with a scolding look from whoever was deemed in charge of them at that moment. That day, however, sat there in a room all carved mantel and sharp edges, at a table too large and too old to ever feel welcoming, Malcolm had stared his inebriated mother down and agreed. </p><p><em>It</em> had happened later, when the two of them had been shuffled away after dinner, the scraping of shaking silverware echoing in Malcolm's ears as they were ushered down long corridors to be forgotten. Then, away from the relentless supervision that shaped their childhood, had come the moment that Malcolm would later rank as one of his most defining, as Ainsley delivered her second, though not final, ringing question of that day.</p><p>"Do you want to get married, Malcolm?" She'd asked, monotone with a slight lilt to her words - that mix of genuine curiosity and forced politeness that could only be found in those who'd learnt not to rebel in the strict etiquette lessons they'd undergone from an early age.</p><p>Her voice had cut through the dust of their rarely used playroom, the kind you only got in old, expensive, family houses such as theirs, ringing round the marble corners and the smooth walls, beholden with perfectly framed paintings of solemnly posed children. From their great-grandfather to their own mother, these incongruously imposing figures gazed outward at all times, appearing just as porcelain-skinned and delicate as the dolls that inhabited the miniature version of their house that they were currently occupied with.</p><p>It was, of course, a room that was Never to be used for rowdy activities such as anything akin to actual play, so the only reason the two Whitly children were usually permitted to be in there was to 'admire' that dollhouse and it's identical decorations to the larger rooms around them. (Malcolm was certain that the only reason he hadn't developed pediophobia later in life was that his traumatised brain already had enough to worry about, there was something about the gleeful manipulation of painted figurines within the same walls that trapped him that he felt should've featured more heavily in his nightmares.)</p><p>Back then though, playing had mostly involved Malcolm watching, his hands already too shaky to handle such small pieces, as Ainsley had firmly taken things in hand. Neither of them really knew why at that point but she'd been building a whole marriage scene, an experience she'd likely understood from one her equally wealthy playmates as being what young girls were expected to do.</p><p>She'd finished the pitiful crowd of four and had been gently pushing the bride down the aisle, humming the Bridal march with an unusually apathetic face for such an expectedly happy scene,</p><p>And then she'd asked.</p><p>And Malcolm had stilled, staring at his six-year-old sister, at her shining cheeks with their spots of color, at the waves of her blonde hair bobbing as she moved, and, as the rustling of her frilled dress had pounded through his head, he'd taken a breath and waited.</p><p>He'd waited for the trembling, and the nightmares, and the <em>flashbacks</em>, as his therapist had called them, he'd waited for the reminders of his father dancing with his mother, his mother screaming herself awake on dark nights, his father reading him bedtime stories, his father smiling, his father... Malcolm had waited for the all-consuming horror of inflicting that potential version of himself on another person, the fears of a twelve-year-old with untold murders behind the closed doors of a mansion that he couldn't seem to escape.</p><p>Yet, strangely, none of that had happened, instead, the grandfather clock had firmly ticked over the hour, Ainsley had held his gaze, her delicate nails tapping on glazed wood, mouth curved upward as she'd continued to hum, eyes hazel on ice blue and... he'd considered <em>it</em> in the vague, crude ways he'd heard other pre-teen boys mention it, but with the mind of someone who'd grown up too fast.</p><p>There had never been such thing as cooties for Malcolm Whitly, he'd never put a jam-sticky hand in someone else's behind the bars of their overly-secure playground and played house, he'd never wanted to pull a girls pigtails, nor had he ever dreamed of smearing ice-cream on the cheek of a childhood crush. </p><p>When twelve-year-old Malcolm thought of the future he hoped to stop seeing the Girl in the Box with every fluttered eyelid, he pretended the last two years of his life had never happened and his family still existed in his innocence, and maybe, on his happier days. he dreamed of a friend, of acceptance as the broken boy he so clearly was, and of someone who would hug him now without the smell of expensive whisky and layered perfumes. </p><p>"No Ainsley," he'd murmured, a smile stretching over the gaps in his teeth, and his memory, "No, I don't want to get married," a breath, "And I don't think I ever will." </p><p>He knew even then that's probably what most boys his age would have said, maybe with more bluster, maybe with more delightfully childish and awkwardly misogynistic jokes but Malcolm had looked at his younger sister and imagined their future and all that he had seen was clinging on, him clinging on to survival and his hopes, them clinging on to those battered but happy memories, and he'd seen the Whitly's clinging on to the idea of family in a bitter world.</p><p>Malcolm Bright had seen glimpses of possibilities in a too-clean playroom in the dawn of a new century and he'd known he was different. </p><p>Though maybe that didn't have to mean that he was alone, because then she'd smiled, pushed the suited ceramic groom into a corner and stood without a second thought, "Do you want to do a jigsaw instead?" She'd asked, (the third toll), no longer curious, with those eyes too smart for someone so small.</p><p>In reply, Malcolm had laughed, it was funny because Malcolm's whole life felt like someone had been trying to do a jigsaw, only they couldn't find any corners, the pieces were back-to-front and then they got hit by a meteor halfway through. </p><p>Or not so funny really.</p><p>He'd laughed again in his head anyway, and reached a trembling hand towards Ainsley's shoulder as she looked up at him, pride in her eyes, before they'd turned together to exit the room, their dolls facedown and long forgotten to the faint whisperings of ringing bells and childhood laughter.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Apparently, I have a lot of *feelings* about old houses but no knowledge of American architecture/ New York/Whitly family specifics so this is what happened.<br/>*also me looking up how old you have to be to go to high school*: ah yes, I see the issue is I just have no knowledge<br/>I now realise this turned out nothing like I expected it too but I weirdly like it??<br/>I also don't want to put a definite timeline on anything bc I'd never stick to it but I can tell you I'm working on more parts soon!<br/>Please feel free to comment your thoughts and feelings on the topic, make corrections, ask questions or just generally chat to me :)<br/>Stay safe lovelies :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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